If you’ve been living under a rock, just know that since their first album in 2005, they’ve trailblazed the sound of urban Latin music with an uncanny blend of witty/irreverent/politically-charged lyricism, and creative instrumentation that is an amalgamation of sounds and influences spanning the Caribbean, Africa, and South America.
Here’s a quick excerpt from my exposé on 11-time Grammy Award winning group Calle 13. (Pictures by Jared Ryder, Styling by LV The Stylist):
The popularity of the 11-time Grammy winning duo has been a double-edged sword since their 2005 self-titled debut; the pull-no-punches honesty for which the world embraces them, also gets them crucified. Case in point: a couple of months ago, while on the air at the MTV Latin Awards, Residente used some of his airtime to criticize Puerto Rico’s governor Luis Fortuno as a vocal reply to the Puerto Rican government’s recent layoff of 17,000 workers. The result: automatic shutdown of Calle 13’s Halloween concert in Puerto Rico. But, as the lines of controversy and popularity continue to blur for the group, it’s allowed them to reconcile their artistic side with their commercial, their zenith occurring at one powerful sentiment: Calle 13 is one of the world’s most important cross-cultural artistic movements.
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